A great talk by Joseph Stiglitz (@Google) about his new book The Price of Inequality. He points out the useless nature of marginal productivity theory in determining the huge rewards enjoyed by some, how there is no correspondence between 'contribution to society' and the large fortunes at the top, which, he contends, also have a good deal to do with plundering those lower down on the food chain. (OK, he phrases it more diplomatically, calling it 'rent seeking'.)
Stiglitz@Google, 2012
Compared to the wealth of information like this that is available to today's undergraduate economics students, I feel like I was living in the stone age when I was a student in the 1970s. I hope their instructors are helping them to find such gems. Perhaps it's one of the best contributions we can make to their education.
I'm Rod Hill, a professor of economics at the University of New Brunswick and the co-author, with Tony Myatt, of "The Economics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Microeconomics" (London: Zed Books, 2010) and The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide, second edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). The first edition was translated into Chinese (Shiwenbooks, Beijing) and into Turkish (Heretik Press, Ankara, 2017. I will use this blog as a place to post discussion with readers of our books and related subjects
Feel free to get in touch: rodntony [AT] gmail.com.
